Turkish court gives go-ahead to demolish Gezi Park

Istanbul’s administrative court gave a green light to demolish city’s Gezi Park, which was at the center of heated nationwide protests sparked by the decision to get rid of the park and turn it into a monument to the Ottoman Empire.

An Istanbul administrative court overturned a lower court’s
ruling to stop the Turkish government’s plan to redevelop
Istanbul’s Gezi Park after the Culture and Tourism Ministry
appealed the verdict.

The new development includes the rebuilding of the Ottoman
artillery barracks, which will have a shopping mall inside one of
the buildings. The protests against the construction spread
nationally since late May, growing into a larger opposition by
those unhappy with Erdogan’s “authoritarian style of
rule.”

The park has turned into a cradle of anti-government unrest,
where the protests quickly became violent as police used teargas and water canon to
disperse protesters.

The demonstrations, which went on throughout most of June,
resulted in the death of four people and around 7,500 injured.

A police officer has also died after falling from a bridge while
in pursuit of fleeing protesters in Adana.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a hard stance against anti-government demonstrators,
calling them “marauders” and repeating the claims of
protesters drinking alcohol in mosques and attacking women in
hijabs.

Erdogan also focused on a foreign supported conspiracy, claiming
the Turkish government has “all the evidence
needed” of the “traitor scheme” behind the
protests.

He also praised the police, saying that Western countries and
Russia had been even tougher in cracking down on protests and
used “bullets,” while the Turkish police have been
“patient.”

During protests Turkish police fired teargas at close range directly at people,
causing serious injuries, said a report by the Human Rights Watch. Those hit by
canisters lost eyes and received life threatening skull
fractures.

At least 11 people lost an eye after being hit by a teargas
canister or a plastic bullet in Turkey up to June 27, said the
statement by the Medical Association quoted in the report. Dozens
of others received serious head or upper body injuries.

Reports said that the Turkish police used 130,000 teargas
canisters over three weeks in June. In total, Turkey imported 628 tons of tear gas and pepper spray
between 2000 and 2012, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported, quoting
Customs and Trade Minister Hayati Yazici.

On July 16, 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the
case of Abdullah Yaşa and Others v. Turkey that “improper firing
of tear gas by Turkish police directly at protestors, injuring a
13 year old, had violated human rights,” and called for stronger
safeguards to minimize the risk of death and injury resulting
from its use.